Stalemate
by Oparu
Summary: Endgame and Full Circle fix-it. Decades after losing Admiral Janeway, Chakotay travels back into the past to the day when the future Admiral Janeway arrived to bring her ship home. When neither of their timelines are worth living with, what can they do?
1. Chapter 1

"You no longer value your linear existence," she informed him, as if diagnosing him with an illness. The Prophet, who had chosen to borrow the form of Annika Hansen from his memory, sat on the edge of the cliff where he'd watched hawks as a child. Her golden hair, now shot with grey, tumbled down over her shoulders and danced in the breeze.

"My linear existence has faded," Chakotay explained, kneeling down to the dirt. In his vision, his knees weren't stiff from their biometric implants. They felt like his own knees again. He drew a line in the dirt, which felt as real as it had when he was a child.

"Your existence is brief. One-dimensional," the Annika-Prophet said.

"Not as one-dimensional as most," another Prophet, this one appearing as Tom Paris, dressed in another one of his holonovel costumes. Chakotay's memory danced around the design, trying to place it. The Tom Paris wearing it was the elderly Admiral from Chakotay's time period who had invented the last three shuttle designs with his wife, not the one who'd spent hours saving the world in the holodeck from Chaotica.

"His people have a slightly increased view of the universe," the Tom-Prophet said optimistically. "He's seen more than most."

"And he believes," a Kes-Prophet weighed in as the scene changed to the bridge of Voyager. She stood up from the captain's chair, even though she must have been dead for decades. "You are not Bajoran, yet you came for us."

"Why?" the Annika-Prophet asked.

"To change his existence," a B'Elanna-Prophet joined them, swinging her feet as she sat on the navigation console behind them. While the Prophets had chosen an elderly Tom, the B'Elanna they'd borrowed was a young woman. "He wishes to change his existence."

"Changing a linear existence is not allowed," a Doctor-Prophet informed him, strolling leisurely along the bridge. "His existence would alter the lives of millions around him."

"One moment changes many others," the Tom-Prophet agreed.

"But he knows that," the B'Elanna-Prophet realised, circling him with a curious smile. "One life in particular."

On the viewsceen of the Voyager from his memory, a Borg cube exploded.

"This moment," the Kes-Prophet said, moving to his side.

The cube exploded, swirled back together and exploded again.

"This moment is not linear," the Tom-Prophet added gently. "This moment is incongruent."

The sand blew in to cover the deck. The B'Elanna-Prophet knelt, and the others followed suit, circling the line he'd drawn before. They all stared at the sand reverently, as if all the answers in the universe were there in the furrow.

"This is your existence," a new female voice said. A hand, her hand, reached down and rubbed out the end of the line. She trailed her fingers in the dirt and he remembered those fingers on his shoulder as if they had just been there. "You let it fade."

He caught her hand out of the dirt and followed her arm up to her face with his eyes. As much as he'd dreaded seeing one of the Prophets become her, it was her and for that he was infinitely grateful. Kathryn Janeway, the reason his existence had faded, smiled at him over the dirt.

Kathryn squeezed his hand, the memory of her blue eyes twinkling as if she was there. "She was here," she said, tracing a line beside his. "Then she was not." She frowned, stopping the line as she reached the part she'd rubbed away. She pulled the memory from his mind and turned to him. Her expression softened, but the Kathryn-Prophet was fascinated. "Her existence terminated," she said, touching her chest. "This being ceased to exist."

"She died," he clarified. No matter how many times he said it, or how many decades it had been since she'd been burned out of the universe, every time he faced Kathryn's death, part of him died. No matter how much he hoped the slow death of him would lead him closer to her, Chakotay hadn't lost enough yet. The last of him clung to existence, no matter how faded or empty.

"Do you want to die?" the Kathryn-Prophet asked him, tilting her head to the side. "You could cease to exist. You could die." She offered it as a suggestion, as his Kathryn might have offered him a glass of wine or a cup of coffee. "Would you see her again if you died?"

"I don't know," Chakotay answered honestly. "I would like to see her again while I am alive." He took the Kathryn-Prophet's hand and set it on the line in the sand, right before the end. "I would like to be here."

"She is there," the Kathryn-Prophet assured him. "You are there."

"I need to be there again," he insisted.

The Kathryn-Prophet pondered that idea. Lifting her hand from the sand, she touched his cheek. "Because she is there."

"Because she is there," he agreed.

"You will change your existence," the Kathryn-Prophet reminded him. "Why?"

He covered the hand on his cheek with his own, then smiled at her. Across decades, time and space, he leaned close to Kathryn Janeway the way he never had in her life, and kissed her. The Kathryn-Prophet had no idea how to return the kiss, and when he pulled back, she studied him curiously. She traced his lips with her fingers. "Corporeal copulation is a reason to change existence."

"What did you feel?" he asked her.

"Feel?" the Kathryn-Prophet repeated. "Feeling is corporeal."

"You should try it," he suggested, chuckling. "Feeling goes behind a linear existence."

The Kathryn-Prophet put her hands on his face. She gently pulled him closer, staring at his lips. This time, the kiss she initiated was soft and tentative, like the first time a girl had kissed him when he was young. He held still, letting her explore the moment. Flashes of memory passed through his mind. Each kiss running into the last. Seska, Annika, the first girl to kiss him, the first girl he'd kissed: all of it ran together, coalescing and refining until it was a single thought. That thought hung in his mind, there and not there, like dark matter.

The Kathryn-Prophet smiled, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Feeling is not linear."

"It's not."

She guided his hand back down to the sand. "Here," she offered.

And he went.

* * *

One moment she was sitting there, listening to Chakotay gently tease Tom for all of B'Elanna's false alarms. The next, she was looking at him. Chakotay stood there in front of her, an ancient Chakotay who's dark eyes were so haunted that they could have been a quantum singularity. His tattoo was faded on his wrinkled skin, his clothing was entirely unfamiliar, but it was undeniably him.

"Kathryn," he murmured, dry lips creasing into a smile.

Tuvok was a step away from him in a moment, and Tom was reaching towards his phaser.

"It's all right," she said, raising a hand to calm them. "Who are you?"

Her Chakotay got to his feet as well, staring at his doppelgänger. He saw the resemblance. They both did.

"A man without a lot of time," the doppelgänger said. "Mr. Tuvok can take me to sickbay to confirm who I am."

Tuvok caught her eye and Kathryn nodded quickly. "Sounds reasonable."

"I thought it might," the elderly Chakotay agreed. "Thank you, captain." His eyes lingered on her, like a starving man having his first glimpse of food.

Something stirred in the pit of her stomach and Kathryn wasn't sure if she could put a name on it. Her Chakotay saw it too, and she could sense him behind her.

When Tuvok led the other away, her Chakotay hovered over her. "That was me, wasn't it?"

"I have no idea." Kathryn shrugged. She should have been able to say more, but that man's eyes-

"You plus about fifty years commander," Tom observed. "Unless you have a great-grandfather you never told us could travel through space."

"Not that I know of," Chakotay replied.

"Any unusual readings Mr. Kim?" Kathryn asked, trying to shake the cold fingers from the bottom of her spine. "Any idea how he got here?"

"I've been working on that, captain," Harry said, frustration sneaking into his voice. "There's no temporal distortions or spatial anomalies. According to the sensors, he just appeared. One second he wasn't here, then he was. I've never seen anything like it."

"Well, considering how improbable it is for a man to appear out of thin air, Mr. Kim, I don't think you can blame yourself," Kathryn quipped, trying to dredge up her own optimism.

Harry's console beeped and drew his attention. His frustrated look gave way to wonder. "I'm reading traces of verteron particles and neutrinos."

"Verteron particles and neutrinos..." Kathryn repeated thoughtfully.

"Like the Bajoran wormhole, captain," Chakotay offered, coming to stand behind her.

She knew that look. "Do you have a theory, commander?"

"Only the beginning of one, captain," Chakotay excused with a nod.

"Let me know when you have an ending." Drumming her fingers on the edge of Harry's console, she decided. "Mr. Kim, keep tracking the verteron particles, try and see if you can determine the decay ratio. I'll be in sickbay."

Chakotay fell into step behind her, leaving the bridge to Tom.

"Do you know what you're going to ask him?" she asked, watching Chakotay's expression shift from being deep in thought to a smile.

"How to make him prove he's me?" he replied. "It's a fascinating opportunity."

"It seems you might outlive all of us," she said, far more lightly than she should have. Fear flashed through Chakotay's face so quickly she may have never caught a glimpse of it if she hadn't known him so well.

"Perhaps." He held his smile, but Kathryn could see the effort it took in the tightening of the fine lines around his eyes. "At least I know I'm going to keep my hair."

* * *

"He is Commander Chakotay," the Doctor confirmed.

"It's Ambassador now," the visiting version of Chakotay corrected gently.

"Rank aside," the Doctor interjected, sharpening of his tone, "they are the same man. Their DNA is identical, and of course that could mean a transporter duplicate or a clever clone. However, when I compared their memory engrams and their neurological profiles-" the Doctor indicated a very complex mental map on his station and continued, "They share one hundred percent of Commander Chakotay's neural engrams. Every moment of the Commander's life was experienced by our guest. The only differences in the pattern are from the addition of new engrams. About thirty-five years worth."

"I'm ninety-four, if you would like to be exact," the visitor weighed in. "The Doctor will also tell you I've had a number of my joints replaced with bio-synthetic ones, and that my right lung, kidneys, liver and pancreas have been replaced with ingenious Borg-inspired replacements. We've made a few advancements in the last few decades."

"All right," Kathryn folded her arms over her chest and frowned at the other him. "Why are you here? How did you get here?"

Chakotay's own shock was starting to fade. He'd suspected he saw himself in their visitor, and having it confirmed was surprisingly comfortable. Watching the elder version of himself smile as Kathryn's questions continued, he saw something else that nagged at the back of his mind.

The other him never took his eyes off Kathryn. From the moment she'd walked into sickbay, the elder Chakotay gave her his full attention, and he hadn't let up. Knowing himself was more frightening then having doubts. This Chakotay had lost her. It was the only possible explanation. Somewhere, along his journey, this version of him had lost the woman who'd given his life meaning.

"I went to the Temple of Iponu on Bajor and asked the Prophets to send me here," the visitor explained with a calm that only irritated Kathryn more. "I assume your sensors detected the verteron particles and traces of neutrinos?"

Chakotay nodded immediately. He'd suspected some kind of micro-wormhole and the Orb of Time was the simplest explanation.

Kathryn looked back at him, not making the connection to the artefact. "No wormhole could form on this ship. Commander, what is he talking about?"

"The Bajoran Orb of Time is kept at that temple," he answered. "I am curious how you gained access to one of the Bajoran people's most precious religious objects."

The visitor smiled weakly and slowly slid off the biobed. "As our father used to tell us, when all else fails, just ask nicely." The darkness in the other man's face vanished for a moment and it was more than years that had aged the man before him.

"You expect us to believe that the wormhole aliens of Bajor sent you back into the past, here in the Delta Quadrant, so you can do what exactly?" Kathryn's temper was up and the visitor's enigmatic smile was only making things worse. Unfortunately for the captain, the visitor was so content to bask in her presence that even her mood worsening meant nothing to him.

"Please, Mr. Tuvok, what time is it?"

"Oh-nine hundred hours and forty-three minutes," Tuvok answered.

"I'm here now because in just over half an hour, another version of you, captain, will arrive through a spatial distortion. She has a plan to bring _Voyager_ home and I have to stop her." The other him said all of it calmly, rationally, as if he was speaking of going down to the mess hall to eat lunch. Tuvok looked incredulous. The Doctor was deeply involved in studying the visitor's brain scans. Something there had his attention.

The captain was quickly approaching her livid state. Chakotay knew that set of her jaw all too well.

"Another version of me, who's what, ninety-eight and used Romulan technology to cloak herself through time?" Kathryn's tone was biting, but the visitor didn't feel it.

"She's using a combination of several technologies, including Borg," the visitor told her with a nod. "You've always been the scientist, captain. You will come your way, and I came mine."

"What reason is that for me not to throw both of you in the brig right now?" Her hand was on her hip and her posture sang with tension. Her time travel induced headache was already stalking her.

"Because you're going to take me up to your ready room and I'm going to break the temporal directive so badly that they'll hear the crack back home," the visitor insisted confidently. "Now, we don't have a lot of time. Of course, Tuvok and a security team may continue to escort me if you wish."

"I wish it," Kathryn snapped. Her eyes flicked to Tuvok. "Take him to my ready room."

Now that Kathryn was angry, the Doctor was interested. She dismissed him as politely as she could under the circumstances and Chakotay reached for his inner well of calm before he approached her. He could feel her frustration roll off her, and knew he approached at his own risk.

"I know I might be the last person you want to see right now," he began lightly and it was enough to break her frown.

"The thought had occurred to me," she replied. Kathryn sighed and fought to constrain her logical mind. "When did you get so irritatingly smug?"

He'd gain nothing by lying to her, but Chakotay knew she wasn't ready for what he had to say. He softened his tone and wished he could ease her way. If the elder him was still in love with her, he didn't envy either of them the conversation they were about to have.

"I think he sees something that he's been missing for a very long time."

The admission was subtle and she was halfway to the door out of sickbay before she whirled back. Kathryn fought her emotions down and simply nodded. "Thank you, commander."

* * *

Tuvok and the other Chakotay were deep in conversation when she entered. Kathryn couldn't help feeling like she was a child who had walked into a secret conference between adults.

"Captain," Tuvok acknowledged and got to his feet.

"It's all right Mr. Tuvok, there's no regulations regarding your speaking with our guest." She demanded coffee from the replicator and tried not to feel self-conscious. Chakotay was right about himself. The older man only had eyes for her when she was in the room. Not even Molly paid her so much attention.

"Will you excuse us, please," she requested, and her security officer obliged. Meeting the other Chakotay's eyes was too difficult, so she kept her gaze on the coffee pot. "Is it still two sugars?" she asked politely.

"No, black is fine," he said, thanking her with a smile. "Once I hit ninety, I didn't mind the taste anymore."

"Ninety," she sighed, shaking her head. "I have to say you look pretty dapper for a man about to become a centenarian."

"Flattery will get you everywhere, captain." He replied, favouring her again with that enigmatic smile. Sipping his coffee slowly, he remarked, "funny how after a few decades, even _Voyager's_ coffee can't be good."

She could see him, her Chakotay, in this man's smile and in the hints of good humour left around his eyes. He'd led a long life, and most of it was written into the deep lines on his face. Age didn't frighten her; Kathryn knew she would watch her own face and body succumb to gravity and the ravages of time.

There was more than time in the haunted look that wouldn't abandon him, no matter how he smiled or relaxed in her presence.

"Chakotay," she began, toying with the handle of her cup.

"It might be easier to let me," he offered, reaching across and taking her hand. The gesture was too familiar for her Chakotay, and the hand that closed over hers had skin like parchment laced with ropy veins.

"In my timeline, Admiral Janeway appeared , today, through a spatial distortion. She told you that the nebula ahead contains a Borg transwarp hub. Together with our crew, we devised a plan that would get _Voyager_ home earlier than her _Voyager_ did."

He took pity on her and paused. His compassion was definitely more familiar than his obsession with her. "How's your headache?"

"I'll live," she promised sardonically.

"While Admiral Janeway's _Voyager_ eventually made it home, it took her many years and the losses she suffered along the way made her cynical and isolated. She represented a side of you it was not easy to confront."

She sighed, no matter when he was from, Chakotay still protected her, apparently even from herself. "Are you insinuating I can be difficult?"

"Only in the best possible way," he promised warmly. Beneath his friendship, a buried need tugged at her, demanding attention she hadn't paid it. His face softened and he tightened his grip on her hand. "In Admiral Janeway's time, Tuvok will become senile from a degenerative Vulcan illness. Seven of Nine will die on an away mission and _Voyager_ will return home absent twenty-two more members of her crew."

Her hand twitched his grasp reflexively, and her coffee was dreadfully bitter in her mouth. "Twenty-two?"

"It's a long journey for them," he replied softly. "It wears on you until you become the woman you're about to meet."

Racing with her, Kathryn's mind plucked at what he'd said a thought at a time. "Tuvok?"

"I believe I can help him," the elder Chakotay promised. He was holding something else back, but his voice was light and hopeful. "As I'm sure the Doctor will explain it to you when he discovers it, I experienced an exceptionally deep mind-meld with Tuvok's son, Sek, the day before I left for Bajor. With a little help from both of our ancestors, Tuvok and I might just be able to achieve _fal-tor-voh_, which should cure him. That's what we were discussing. It's never been attempted with a human before, but he left a detailed impression of his mind on mine that should allow let me help Tuvok."

Trying to rationalise losing her dear friend and advisor only to have this stranger offer to give him back was difficult. Kathryn nodded and put the thought aside. Seven of Nine's death was unacceptable, of course. On that point she agreed with her inbound future self completely.

"Twenty-two..." she repeated. Grief tightened her throat and she tried not to imagine launching twenty-two more bodies into space on their long journey home. "But we get home?" She almost didn't want the question answered.

"You do," he said, releasing her hand and turning his attention to the stars outside her window. "I've missed this view, captain."

The twisting of her stomach had an answer she didn't even want to consider. "And you?"

"Die shortly after returning to Earth," he informed her, bringing his dark eyes back to her face. "However, that timeline is not what I experienced."

"You're from the timeline Admiral Janeway corrected, or thought she was correcting?" Kathryn guessed. "Surely it can't be worse than losing twenty-two people!"

"In my timeline, we follow a plan that both of you approved. Admiral Janeway helped us destroy the transwarp hub, and _Voyager_ arrived home. You land the ship on the lawn of Starfleet Headquarters, just like you've always said you would."

The idea of _Voyager_ home safe brought tears to her eyes. She might have wiped them away more quickly in the presence of her Chakotay, but this one seemed incapable of judging her. "So far it sounds perfectly acceptable." Her throat tightened hopefully. The idea of reaching home had been so far away.

"It is, for a time," he said, voice cracking ever so slightly. "Many of the crew are promoted; reunited with their families. For a time, it's a great celebration, everything we could have dreamed of."

"You're not making your case very well," Kathryn retorted. Something was wrong, terribly wrong, and he had no intention of telling her what it was. Her aggravated anticipation seethed over her as if she'd disturbed Utzrican fire ants.

The elderly Chakotay smiled knowingly at her, as if he'd forgotten all about her temper and now found it endearing. "I'm being selfish, Kathryn, forgive me," he said. "After the paperwork, and the debriefings, the crew is reassigned, many promoted. _Voyager_ is retrofit and relaunched. Gretchen and I- your mother, I mean- had tea every Wednesday for years."

"My mother?" A very old ache rose up fresh in her chest.

"Never turned down an invitation for dinner," he said fondly. "She always came to our gatherings at the memorial." There was something else, something he was leaving out and she couldn't quite-

Then she understood, but Kathryn desperately wanted to be wrong. "The memorial for the crew we lost?"

"No," he shook his head. "Though that is nearby." The elder Chakotay set down his cup and clasped his hands together. "It's a grand memorial, Kathryn. Topped with an ever-burning flame. It's really quite beautiful."

"I don't know who you think you are-" she snapped, impatience finally bubbling over.

"Please," his throat choked the word, turning it into a sob. He closed his eyes, then folded his hands in a Vulcan meditative posture. Grief washed over his features like the sea over old stones. Chakotay's breath shuddered, then quieted. "I have very little time and I'm afraid there are things that it will never be easy for me to say."

She brushed his shoulder first, then she cupped his cheek. The bones of his face were barely covered by flesh anymore and the fragility of him ached in her chest. "Tell me a story."

His smile was the brightest it had been since he'd come aboard. "This one doesn't have a happy ending."

"Chakotay-" She stoked down his cheek. "Please. I have to know."

"My last story was about a woman warrior, as is this one. She was much beloved by her tribe, for she was a mother to all of them. She'd even found a young woman who had been raised by faceless demons and taught that young woman to love and laugh, as she should have always been able to. That woman warrior brought her tribe home after a great journey across the stars and the great gathering of her people honoured her in many songs and stories. For a time she was happy, and her tribe was safe with their families again."

When he paused, her heart threatened to stop with him. Chakotay's eyes were suddenly ancient and terribly dark.

"The faceless demons were strong, and though the woman warrior and her people had outwitted them many times in the past, after she came home, the woman warrior's tribe was scattered. Her family was not able to come to her aid when the demons took hold of her soul."

"No..." her gasp was a prayer of disbelief.

"The woman warrior had been powerful, and her great strength was turned against her people. The woman she'd saved on her journey, and a great warrior who had fought the faceless ones before managed to stop the woman warrior but the damage had been done. The faceless ones had wrought more pain and suffering than they ever had before.

"The greatest suffering was in the tribe of the woman warrior, for though she had saved all of them and kept them safe on her journey home, none of them were able to save her. Without her, the woman warrior's family was broken. The young woman she'd rescued, the one who had been faceless once, forgot how to laugh. The lovers she'd protected never knew peace, for their daughter was never safe. The young man she'd nurtured into a warrior died a warrior's death. Her confidant carried the weight of her absence for the rest of his long life."

His bitterness crackled in the air, clouding his eyes. It was more than grief, or the unstoppable anger he'd fought against when he'd come onboard many years ago. This Chakotay had been destroyed; his heart torn from his chest, and what remained was still suffering that loss.

"And the angry warrior, who had once sheathed his sword and fury to stand by her side, found without her, he would never again know peace. Instead of being angry, because that could no longer fill him, he was hollow. When life did not leave him for many years, he was hollow for a very long time." His voice had softened to nearly a whisper and the twisting of her stomach suggested she knew exactly why he couldn't take his eyes off her.

She should have been asking him how the Borg assimilated her, if she became a queen, or grabbed the nearest phaser and prevented herself from becoming an instrument of the galaxy's greatest evil. Instead all she could think about was how terrible it must have been for him to spend decades alone.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Kathryn shook her head slowly. "I would die to bring my crew home, Chakotay, you know that."

Chakotay sat back, reaching for her shoulder with a trembling hand. "And any one of them would die to keep you alive, captain. It's an odd predicament, isn't it?"

"I don't understand," she stammered. "You're here to stop some version of me from bringing us home because she hates her timeline but yours-"

"Cannot be allowed to occur," he begged her, digging his bony fingers into her shoulder with surprising strength.

"I can't change the future," she protested. Leaving the sofa, she crossed her arms in frustration. Kathryn took a deep breath and willed her heart to stop racing. "Not to hers or yours or to whatever the future version of Naomi Wildman wants me to do."

He laughed wearily, watching her with tremendous sympathy. "I don't think she's coming."

"Good," Kathryn agreed sardonically, "I'll run out of guest quarters." He kept watching her; she could feel his gaze as she paced back and forth. As disconcerting as it was, part of her-

"Doctor to Captain Janeway," her commbadge interrupted. "Are you with our visitor?"


	2. Chapter 2

"Doctor to Captain Janeway," her commbadge interrupted. "Are you with our visitor?"

She sighed instead of responding to the summons.

"There's something on my brain scan," the elderly Chakotay reminded her. "He'll want me in sickbay."

Still shaken by his story, all she could do was nod to him as she tapped her commbadge. "Janeway here. Doctor, what can I do for you?"

"I need our visitor back in sickbay immediately," the Doctor's concern was evident in the sharp tone of his voice, but Chakotay only shrugged.

"If you can spare Tuvok, he may be better able to explain it to the Doctor," he requested. He stood slowly, reminding her again how fragile this version of her first officer was.

For some reason, that only increased her apprehension. There were many parts of the Vulcan mental abilities she had to take on faith because she'd never understand the intricacies of telepaths. Having experienced Tuvok's memories first hand through a mind meld, Kathryn believes there were a great many things she'd have to take his word regarding the workings of the Vulcan mind. "Will you be all right?" The question was both shyer and more caring than she'd intended.

Chakotay smiled calmly, just as hers would, but she had a harder time believing him. "I'll be fine, captain."

She nodded and tapped her commbadge. "Mr. Tuvok, please report to my ready room to escort our guest back to sickbay."

"Aye, captain," Tuvok responded immediately.

Chakotay passed her on his way to the door. Kathryn stared at her desk and wondered what she was getting herself into. If the other version of her was indeed arriving, she'd more than have her hands full. One Kathryn Janeway was quite enough for her to deal with on a daily basis.

She turned to him before he left. "Chakotay," Kathryn began, shyly curious. "You don't have to call me captain. I'm sure in your time, you don't." Or didn't, she realised after she spoke.

Tuvok chose that moment to enter, breaking a look between then that was turning her knees to water. She was entirely unprepared for the depth of his connection to her. Her Chakotay kept a respectful distance, and they'd maintained that for long enough that neither of them wavered back to how they'd been. No matter how-

She couldn't think that way.

"I called you Kathryn," Chakotay answered, still smiling. "Except, perhaps the once or twice when I needed to call you Admiral." He made the last a gentle rebuke. Reminding her that even in the far away future, before her- Kathryn's mind struggled to process it- her death, Chakotay was, as he'd been for the last seven years, still her conscience and her guide.

Nodding slowly, she gave him permission, just as she had five years ago on New Earth. "I think I'd like you to continue to do that," she finished.

Tuvok raised an eyebrow, noting the subtle shift between them and filing it away.

Kathryn didn't have time to think about what she was doing, or how much Chakotay's eventual disappearance back into the aether between time and the universes would reopen a wound she'd been trying to allow to heal.

"As you wish," Chakotay finished before he left with Tuvok.

Sinking back against her desk, Kathryn dropped her gaze to the carpet and realised part of the knot in her stomach had nothing to do with Chakotay, and was simply the gnawing ache of being alone. She'd lost Justin first, then Mark, and now she'd kept Chakotay so far away that he would cross decades for her.

And her for him. That had to be part of the inbound from the future Admiral Janeway's drive. Losing Chakotay upon their return home was inconceivable; being taken by the Borg made her nauseated at the thought and was equally as horrifying. There had to be a better way. Something, some compromise. _Voyager_ deserved to go home; her crew needed their families. Chakotay would sacrifice himself for that in a heartbeat, as would she, but it wasn't her death that terrified her.

It was her part in the brutally efficient slaughter of her own people once she became Borg that had her stomach in knots. Her knuckles were white on the edge of the desk, and the metal cut into her palms. She couldn't be responsible for mass murder. She couldn't die with that on her conscience. She would _not_ be an instrument of the faceless evil that brought assimilation and terror. Between the rock and the hard place she would find a better way, no matter what sacrifice that inevitably took.

* * *

"It does appear to be a Vulcan mental pattern," Tuvok agreed with the Doctor.

Chakotay looked on patiently. His feet had started to go numb in Kathryn's ready room, and even when she'd touched him, he'd had a hard time feeling it. Sek's stern warnings about the danger of what he had decided to do echoed in his mind, slipping around the edges of his memories and the super-imposed Vulcan ones. It was so much easier to be calm when one shared his mind with the echo of a Vulcan. Seeing Kathryn again would have had him in tears without the mental passenger he carried and in a small way, he was grateful.

The tea the Doctor had generously allowed him did nothing to warm his hands, and Chakotay had burnt his mouth when he'd taken his first sip. Even though it had hurt at first, that stinging sensation had faded. He hated to rush them, hurry was inefficient, but his time was growing shorter each moment.

"I shared _fal-tor-voh _with your son Sek," Chakotay interrupted the Doctor's explanation. "With the aid of one of the monks of Amonak, they sealed an echo of him in my mind."

"This explanation is crude, but possible," Tuvok said with a tilt of his head. "Many of the monks are capable of feats of great mental discipline. However, such a meld would cause extensive damage to the mind of a human if not immediately purged. Your neural pathways are inadequate and incompatible with Vulcan neural impressions."

"Damage like the complete failure of his perimeter nerves, the degradation of his motor cortex and the decay of his brain stem?" The Doctor asked sarcastically. "Extensive may be an understatement. I don't even know how to begin the repair of your-"

"You won't," Chakotay corrected him kindly. "This is a one way trip, Doctor. Why don't you prepare to monitor Tuvok so he can take the impression out of my mind? As pleasant as it is to have Vulcan mental discipline, I think I'd like to die alone with my thoughts."

Tuvok's eyebrow rose again but he agreed with the suggestion. "The mind meld would pose little risk to me, Doctor."

"Of course, meld with the dying man. I'll just prepare for an autopsy," the Doctor snapped in frustration. He fitted a neural monitor to Tuvok's parietal bone and then turned to Chakotay. "I'm sure this was a last resort?"

"It was the least I could do for a friend," Chakotay answered serenely. Seeing Kathryn again had been the last necessary stop on his journey. Peace was the only warmth he was still capable of feeling, and knowing she would live, was enough to make this end a welcome one. Even if his past self was too foolish to realise how much he was missing, Chakotay had hope that his spirit guide would give his younger self the same ultimatum he'd once received. Maybe in this time, he'd listen.

* * *

She'd been prepared for surprise. Shock, mistrust and suspicion were perfectly rational ways to respond to someone from the future appearing and insisting that you alter course. Admiral Janeway was content she could deal with those emotions. She knew herself better than anyone.

The self that greeted her was younger, her hair was still bright auburn and her figure trimmer than Kathryn had been in a few years. Instead of meeting Kathryn's gaze with suspicion or wonder, her past self was on the verge of tears.

She had her emotions checked enough that her crew wouldn't have guessed, but Kathryn knew herself. She'd chosen her moment carefully. Kathryn remembered the Borg signatures and the nebula perfectly.

She'd had no grief then. She hadn't been that rattled.

Perhaps it was a fluke. Maybe she'd misunderstood herself on the viewscreen. When she materialised in _Voyager's_ familiar transporter room, she half expected her former self to have recovered.

If anything, she was worse in person. The other her, the captain, had been shaken to the core of her being. It couldn't have been her, Kathryn resolved. Her appearance, no matter how shocking, wasn't enough to provoke this response.

"Would you like me in sickbay?" she asked her former self politely. "You can confirm my identity there."

"Of course, I assume you know the way." the other her fell in step behind her. Her lips were too tight, and Kathryn knew exactly what that kind of tension felt like. It didn't fit. There was no fight, no argument, and that didn't make any sense at all.

The captain even let her summon the turbolift, deferring to her as if she'd been expected. When they reached deck five and the lift opened, Kathryn let the security guard leave first, then paused.

"What is it?" she demanded of her former self. "You're not surprised to see me?"

"I knew you were coming," the captain replied, choking ever so slightly on her words.

It was taking all of her will for her younger self to maintain her composure and Kathryn had no right to take that from her. She wouldn't be that cruel. She walked the rest of the way to sickbay in silence, trusting that all would be explained eventually.

Few things would have made her control falter. Kathryn had experienced two more decades than her younger self and had that much more practice steeling herself against her emotions. She'd had both time and occasion to improve her already impressive control. She'd even prepared herself to see Chakotay and Seven again. She'd drilled it into her own mind that this time was different, this time they'd both live because she would not allow them to die.

Nothing could have prepared her for him.

Chakotay, not the young man behind the captain from this time period, but the elderly man her Chakotay hadn't lived to become. He sat meditating on the biobed with Tuvok on another bed nearby, his hands in his lap. His hair was whiter than hers, and his skin fragile and lined. He was easily older than she was by at least a decade. When she looked at him, all she could see was _her_ Chakotay: the man she'd sat with while he died, whose ashes she'd scattered beneath that tree with his memorial, and whose eulogy she'd had to stumble through in front of the surviving members of her crew.

"No," she shook her head, fighting desperately against the crumbling of her resolve.

"Kathryn," he noticed, opening his eyes. "You're exactly on time."

"I always am," she replied, remember the hundreds of dinners she'd never been late for, or the way he'd teased her for being one minute late to his wedding. Kathryn couldn't have told him then that she was late because her heart had been torn from her chest and she didn't know how to smile without it.

The elderly Chakotay nodded, smiling as if everything was right with the universe. "That's what I love about you."

They avoided the word love. Neither of them had mentioned it after Seven's death, and the smouldering connection between them had evolved until it stagnated and tortured them both. She'd hated him for dying and leaving her. He'd begged her forgiveness, pleaded with her to understand that he'd been ready to start his journey once Seven had left without him. She'd held his hand, promising him through the last of her tears that she understood.

She hadn't cried after that. Kathryn had spent the last of her grief over his cooling body. The only thing she'd had left was resolve. The same stubborn refusal to give up that had gotten her crew home once would get them home better. She owed them that much; she owed Chakotay a life full of love and happiness, even if it couldn't be with her.

Kathryn took a step towards him, her arms plastered to her sides as if she'd forgotten how to move them.

"It's been a long time," she whispered, wishing she had the strength to chase the lump from her throat. She didn't cry.

"Ten years for you," Chakotay said, reaching towards her.

She couldn't take his hand. _Dammit_. This was not supposed to happen.

Her traitorous feet moved her closer, and his gentle fingers drew her in. Chakotay's hand ran up her arm and finally closed just above her elbow. His other hand caught her shoulder and held her before him for an instant before he embraced her so hard she lost her breath. He certainly didn't appear to have the strength, but he held on as if she were the last human being in the universe.

He whispered into her hair, the hot tears he wept freely were hot against her forehead. "For me, it's been a lot longer than that."

* * *

Kathryn retreated back to the Doctor's office, leaning against the door frame and letting the impossible reunion of two old friends, who'd lost each other decades ago, take place with as much privacy as she could give them. She closed her eyes, taking the slowest breath she could manage.

"Doctor," she ordered, "please confirm her identity when it seems polite to do so."

"Yes, captain," the hologram agreed, moving to sit behind his desk. "You may also wish to know that I expect Lieutenant Commander Tuvok to make a full recovery from his degenerative neurological condition. The mind meld that Chakotay performed in the Alpha Quadrant and the second a few minutes ago seem to have provided the necessary stabilising effect on Tuvok's neural chemistry."

"Thank you," she replied numbly. That was a relief at least. "Doctor, I'll be in my ready room. Let me know when they-"

The Doctor cocked his head in the direction of their visitors, both still wrapped in each other's arms. "I didn't know your relationship with the commander would change so much over a few short decades."

It was a joke, Kathryn reminded herself, but she didn't have the emotional reserve left to handle it. "Thank you," she repeated, and tactically fled sickbay.

Once she was alone in the turbolift, her hands began to tremble. She'd been fighting everything since that Chakotay had appeared. He'd been emotionally devastating enough, then she'd met herself. Admiral Janeway was cold, over confidant and overbearing. She was all the things Kathryn had promised herself not to become if she ever made the Admiralty.

Maybe there was only so much loss she could take. Chakotay without her was a haunted man, and herself without him was barely more than the remnants of her temper with a uniform: that uniform represented the career she'd obviously thrown away because she needed to keep him alive.

How could she turn into that? Were those her only two options? Becoming a bitter old Admiral who'd outlived her best friends or an instrument of the Borg's vendetta against humanity? There had to be another way, a better way, some fate less ominous.

The turbolift paused to let her out onto the bridge, and she stared instead of moving. Tom was at his station, and Harry was moving towards Chakotay's chair. It was quiet. B'Elanna had her hands full down in the shuttle bay examining the Admiral's shuttle and everything was operating efficiently. She could take the time to think.

Chakotay's hands caught her half a second before she crashed into him. "Sorry, captain," he offered apologetically. "I guess I'm wearing my cloaking device today."

Another joke, and she still could barely summon a wan smile. "Perhaps you are." She removed herself from his protective grasp and started towards her ready room. "I don't suppose you'd except lunch as an apology."

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely. "I have plans."

Perhaps it was for the best, Kathryn thought. She was cursed to be alone, no matter what she did.

* * *

"I wish to alter the parameters of our relationship," Seven announced over their lunch.

Chakotay set down his glass, folded his hands in his lap and waited for her to continue. He couldn't help feeling guilty turning down Kathryn's invitation. She'd been walking a knife's edge since that version of him had arrived from one possible future, and the brittle, almost caustic presence of Admiral Janeway wasn't helping. He hadn't seen her in person yet, but she'd been jarring enough over the viewscreen.

"In what way?" he asked Seven, dragging his thoughts away from all incarnations of Kathryn Janeway.

"I believe I have begun this relationship in error," Seven said, her expression strained. "I have made a mistake."

"Seven-"

"Chakotay," she interrupted. "I believe there is a flaw in this pursuit of a romantic relationship. The flaw lies within my reasoning, and I am fully responsible for the necessary termination of this relationship in its current form."

"It's not you, it's me?" he asked slowly, trying not to smile.

"I believe that is a common form for a break-up to take," Seven replied calmly. "I apologise for any confusion on your part. Romantic relationships are very perplexing for me, and though I believed you were the party I found most desirable, it appears I was in error."

He'd do her little good if he forced his disappointment on her or reacted badly, so Chakotay tried to approach the situation as if he were an outside observer. "Would you care to elaborate?"

"I don't believe I can," Seven answered regretfully. "It would be inappropriate for me to comment on the feelings of a third party when that party has not made her feelings known."

"Discuss it with me in the hypothetical," he suggested, quickly forgetting his disappointment as his curiosity took over.

She pondered that, and as she thought, Chakotay realised there was only one person on Voyager she would protect this carefully. Seven had never been good at reading facial expressions and he buried his surprise as deeply as he could.

"Your suitability as a romantic partner is not something I have determined for myself. I believe I substituted the feelings of someone else for my own. I am not comfortable identifying the individual, and I am very sorry if I have hurt you. I would like us to return to being friends if that is still possible."

"Of course," he assured her gently. "Sometimes you have to try a relationship to see if it'll work out, and it doesn't. No one's lost anything, especially not our friendship." He'd been flattered she was interested in him; Seven was lovely and intelligent and reminded him a great deal of Kathryn.

Who loved him. Which was a thought he'd tried to put out of his head. They needed the space between each other to function, Kathryn couldn't risk her heart again, it would ruin the chain of command: he had a list of reasons a parsec long.

"May I ask who you are attracted to?" Chakotay wondered, settling back in to finish the picnic to spare them both the discomfort of leaving it unfinished.

"I believe I am attracted to Ensign Lang," Seven explained coolly. "She appears to have an attraction to me as well, and has invited me to share her holodeck time. We will be attending a simulation of the Hoobishan baths on Trill."

"I've heard good things," he said, trying not to chuckle. "Ensign Lang is a lovely young woman."

"I find her sense of humour acceptable, her dedication to her work adequate, her conversations stimulating and her hair very distracting," Seven finished the last with her dazzling smile. "I believe that is an acceptable foundation to being a relationship."

"I wish you and Beth the best," he promised, grinning around a strawberry. "If you have any questions about dating a human."

"I may ask your advice," Seven replied, clearly relieved he was taking it so well. "The Doctor's thoughts can be unpredictable and Tuvok is frequently perplexed by human dating rituals. While the captain is very wise, and I rely on her counsel in many things, I do not believe this would be appropriate to discuss with her at this juncture."

"Fair enough," he agreed. If Seven was more interested in women, it was entirely possible she had a bit of a crush on Kathryn. He couldn't blame her. Kathryn was entirely captivating and she'd been uniquely honest with Seven. "Good luck," Chakotay offered. "Beth Lang is very fortunate."

"Thank you," Seven acknowledged with surprising warmth. "I also feel fortunate."

* * *

"I remember that scent. Lavender, isn't it?"

The voice jolted her out of her thoughts. Kathryn startled, sitting up in her bath. She reached for her towel, panicked by the intrusion, and saw her future self.

The Admiral handed it over and held it above the water. "The computer let me in."

Kathryn frowned, cursing the computer mentally. "Of course, it did, you're me." Instead of taking the towel, she retreated into the back corner of the tub. It was her after all, modesty seemed a little out of place.

The admiral folded the towel and set it neatly aside. "Apparently _Voyager_ isn't bothered by two of us existing," she said, sitting down on the edge of the bath. "Nor two Chakotays."

"I don't think the ambassador goes around walking in on his younger self," Kathryn retorted, trying not to feel as violated as she had when Phoebe had gone through her things. This was another her, not a sister, but the trespass was similar.

"If it's any consolation, someday you'll wish you looked that good again," the admiral promised darkly. "Though we haven't aged too badly, all in all."

Kathryn let her hands sink back beneath the surface of the bubbles. The water was still warm and she'd been just starting to get the idea of the Borg out of her head. "What do you want?" she asked softly. Maybe if she answered the question, the admiral would leave and she could start lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling as she dealt with her inevitable insomnia.

"What did he tell you?" the admiral asked, trailing her hand through the bubbles. "The ambassador told you about his timeline, didn't he?"

Pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them, Kathryn nodded. "Not in detail."

"And he told you about mine?" the admiral pressed. She let water drip from her fingers slowly back into the tub instead of drying her hand.

The heat of the bath had become oppressive instead of comforting; Kathryn sighed and put her hand out for the towel. The admiral handed it over politely, but made no move to avert her eyes.

"No offence," Kathryn replied, "but both of them sound like something I want to avoid." Standing up from the bath, she felt more exposed than simply nude. She wrapped the towel around herself quickly, crushing piles of bubbles against her skin and dragging the corner in the water. Activating the drain, she stood in the bath while the water vanished back into the ship's reclamation system.

"So what will you do?" the admiral asked, locking her gaze.

Kathryn wasn't sure when she'd become so cold, but it was disconcerting to see herself so pitiless. She removed the small towel that held her hair and let it fall damply to her shoulders. "I don't know," she answered honestly.

Dragging her hand through her hair, Kathryn stepped out of the bath onto the cool deck. Water ran down her feet and pooled around her. The admiral was still watching her, and she gave up on modesty to dry herself. Rubbing the towel across her shoulders, she frowned towards one of the futures she was trying to avoid.

"Your timeline ends without Seven or Chakotay, and I can't imagine losing Tuvok like that." She dried her left arm, ignoring the admiral's eyes. "Chakotay's seems to work out better, at least, for everyone but me and the thousands of people I kill."

"It's not you," the admiral reminded her. Kathryn thought she heard a trace of pity.

"Isn't it?" she argued. Working the towel down her torso, she voiced the argument she'd been making internally all evening. "Locutus of Borg wasn't Jean-Luc Picard, but it was Picard's knowledge of the fleet that got that cube as far as it did. A queen, or whatever it is that I become, wouldn't be me, but it would be my knowledge of the Federation, my insight, my very essence that they used to kill."

The cold knot in her stomach she'd been hoping the bath would ease away roared up into her chest. Holding the towel wrapped loosely around her waist, Kathryn shivered at the thought. "I can't let that happen. I'll take my chances here in the Delta Quadrant if it'll prevent that from happening."

"But the crew..." the admiral finished for her, her voice softening for the first time since she'd seen Chakotay in sickbay.

"How do I keep them from their homes?" Kathryn asked herself. "How can I ask them to spend any more time away from their families just so I don't-"

"Become a soulless monster?" the admiral interrupted. "I don't know. Chakotay, Ambassador Chakotay, hasn't been able to tell me about that death. He seems to have come all this way, just to warn you not to listen to me." She folded her hands, staring down at her entwined fingers as she searched for words.

"I'm no Borg, but my experience was no picnic. You'll lose members of your crew. I was so tired during one memorial service that I forgot Ensign Latimer's name. It was the fourth one in as many days and I just couldn't-" The admiral shut her eyes and the forcefield that held her emotions in check snapped down. "I am not what you wish to become, Kathryn. I'm a bitter old woman who barely speaks to her family. No matter how much they try to drag me away from myself, I hold on to the loneliness so hard that I'll never be able to let it go."

"I can't become Borg," Kathryn whispered, clutching the towel to her chest. "I will not. I can't follow your path." She turned away, passing the admiral on her way to the bedroom.

The admiral knew her too well and followed her. "You'll stay here," the admiral realised. "You'll send _Voyager_ home in the transwarp hub, follow the plan that worked in Chakotay's timeline but remove yourself from the equation." She leaned in the doorway of the bedroom, tone dripping with disdain. "And you'll do what? Take the _Delta Flyer _back to Quarra and see if that engineer still wants you to move in? Live in the mining colony with Neelix and the Talaxians? Study stellar phenomena until you make a mistake and mercifully get yourself killed?"

"All of it's better than the Borg," Kathryn reminded her. Dropping the towel into the laundry, she pulled her pyjamas over her damp skin. "If Chakotay taking the crew home prevents either of the futures I know about from happening, then it sounds good to me." The admiral was silent then. Once she was dressed, Kathryn turned, looking for the admiral.

The elder woman waited in her living room, arms crossed over her chest as she looked out at the stars. "Your plan might work," she offered, her voice barely more than a whisper. "But, it's a big galaxy and if the Borg can't find you, I'm sure they'll just find someone else. Admiral Necheyev, T'Sorna, or Seven of Nine herself. The Borg don't give up."

"Neither did I," Kathryn corrected. "At least, not now. I don't know if I do in the future." It was almost too cruel, but her frustration had hold of her.

The admiral's shoulders squared and she stiffened as if she'd been reinforced with duranium. "It's easy not to give up when he's standing there beside you. When he's gone, when you've watched him die slowly for years, giving up is all you have left."


	3. Chapter 3

Chakotay could tell that from the way the butter had congealed on her toast and her soup looked forlorn and cold that she'd lost interest as soon as her lunch had arrived. The carrot and ginger soup was one of Chell's better efforts and deserved better than to be abandoned. Kathryn's full attention was directed out of her window and he cleared his throat.

"If you're not interested in your soup, I have enough replicator rations for ice cream," he began, climbing the steps towards her. "This is Seven's preliminary report on the transwarp hub, B'Elanna's analysis of the Admiral's shuttle, and the Doctor's prognosis regarding Tuvok's recovery after his mind meld."

"Thank you," she said, smiling faintly. "I don't have the appetite, but I appreciate the sentiment."

"Think you'll have an appetite by dinner?" he asked, returning her smile with one much brighter. Kathryn needed the company. She was retreating back into herself and the spark he admired so greatly in her was dim today.

"Perhaps," she answered without conviction. She scrolled through the various reports, skimming what was important before she read them in detail later. "Schedule a briefing for sixteen hundred hours. We need a plan to destroy the transwarp hub that will still allow _Voyager_ to use it. Invite our guests. The ambassador may remember what worked in his timeline."

He acknowledged with a nod. "I'll see you for dinner."

"Chakotay-"

"Dinner," he stopped her protest and smiled at her until she smiled. Even her exhausted smile was always beautiful. "Nineteen hundred, I'll bring it to you."

She stopped trying to talk him out of it and gave in. He was nearly to the door before she called after him.

"No plans today?"

"Not aside from you," he answered, pausing in front of the door. "Have you ever given Seven dating advice?"

Kathryn turned all the way from the window and looked at him curiously, her hands in her lap. "Not as such, no. Why?"

"Just curious." He paused, waving off the question. "I'll see you at nineteen hundred."

* * *

"You can use the transwarp hub to go home," the admiral pleaded with them, her hands on the briefing table. "Home. Earth. Your families."

"Not without the captain, admiral," Tom argued with her, not even swayed by the admiral's display. "If the condition of us going home is that she stays here, we're not going."

"And if the Borg are going to take the captain after we go back, we're not going." B'Elanna nodded in the chair next to him. Her hand rested on her belly and Ambassador Chakotay had to smile. Miral was such a gift to all of her family; it was hard to imagine her as a baby again.

"Captain Janeway's knowledge of Starfleet would be a dangerous asset to the Borg, were she assimilated," Seven agreed from the other side of the table. "That should not be allowed to occur."

The Doctor glanced to Tuvok for his permission before he spoke. "The mind meld between Ambassador Chakotay and Lieutenant Commander Tuvok has been a success. Tuvok's condition is not a reason to return to the Alpha Quadrant any longer."

Harry thought longer than the rest, pondering everything the Ambassador had told them. "You said Starfleet perfected slipstream technology, in the 2380s." he asked Chakotay, who'd been sitting at the admiral's side while she explained what she thought they should do. "If that holds true if whatever timeline we're in now, Starfleet can just come get us."

"That's the spirit Harry," Tom mused with a grin. "We'll wait to be rescued."

"It is an option that neither of you have experienced," Tuvok volunteered. He was still wearing the cortical monitor but his prognosis was excellent. Kathryn would have his counsel, no matter what course her crew chose in the end. That was worth his life.

"The likelihood of a positive outcome is no greater or lesser no matter which choice we make. The timeline has been fundamentally altered by the presence of Admiral Janeway and Ambassador Chakotay. Predicting the consequences of our actions is either a gamble or a manner of following logical conclusions."

"We'll have the hull plating from the Admiral's shuttle," Tom reminded them. "Transphasic torpedoes. Technology from decades in the future. I think it's a good bet to make that we'll do better out here than we did during the Admiral's timeline. No offence meant, ma'am."

He tossed out the last word to remind the admiral it was the captain's ship and Chakotay was pleased he was so protective.

Tuvok was the quiet voice of reason. "You are aware this may constitute mutiny, Mr. Paris. No matter how good our intentions may be."

"The captain would do anything for one of us," B'Elanna insisted. "We've taken on the Borg to get Seven back, fought the Kazon for the boy who might have been Chakotay's son. We're a family. I've never had one before, but I'd like to think I've grown wise enough to know what one is when I'm in it."

Tom deferred wisely to his wife with a grin. Seven nodded as well. Tuvok's agreement was a slight bob of his head.

"Well, I am attached to the ship," the Doctor piped up jovially. "I also do not wish to see the captain assimilated, especially when I won't be there to perform the same magic I did last time."

B'Elanna rolled her eyes.

"All right," Harry said aloud once all eyes were on him. "All right. I've always wanted to see what mutiny was like."

"That's the Harry we love," Tom teased. "Ready to try anything."

"We have two hours before we tell the captain, we'll need to get to work on those modifications," B'Elanna said. "Harry, I'll need as many of your people as you can spare." She turned in her chair to look at Tuvok. "Security too, sir."

"They are at your disposal, lieutenant." Tuvok stood and the rest of the senior staff followed suit.

Chakotay watched them disperse then looked down at his hands in his lap. The admiral had only been able to watch, completely awestruck as her younger self's crew rallied around her former self.

"Fighting against your own life isn't much of an argument," he reminded her gently. "Especially not with this crew."

She couldn't look at him for the full spread of several heartbeats. His own heart was echoing faintly in his ears and the creeping numbness melding with Tuvok had chased away had crawled back into his legs. Chakotay doubted he'd be able to stand, but that didn't seem to matter in this moment.

The tear on her cheek was what drew his attention. As closed off as she'd tried to make herself, this Janeway was still the one he loved underneath the frigid exterior. His fingers didn't respond when he reached for her shoulder, but the gesture calmed her anyway. She reached up for his fingers and held them.

"I don't know whether to be jealous of myself or pity them all for what lies ahead of them," she said finally.

"We would have done the same for you, given half a chance," he reminded her.

The admiral, Kathryn, squeezed his hand and drew it down from her shoulder into her lap. "If the technology helps them, my trip's not a total waste of breaking the temporal prime directive." She leaned across the arm of his chair and kissed his cheek.

When her forehead remained pressed against the side of his head, he turned slightly towards her. She'd had tears on her face last night when she'd arrived unannounced in his quarters. He assumed it had been seeing Seven again, but to his surprise it was her younger self that had the elder Kathryn in tears. A few minutes argument over why their previous selves were so dead set on avoiding what they both wanted so badly and she'd kissed him.

He hardly had the strength to kiss her the way she deserved to be kissed, and they made love in a slow, comfortable way. As if they'd been together for decades instead of finding each other for the her first and his second time. She'd devoured everything he had to tell her about the time they'd been together in the Alpha Quadrant. How they'd finally stopped orbiting each other and realised that they were indeed the centre of each other's universe.

Talking about her death, with her in his arms had a surreal quality that only made their tears more poignant.

She'd held him once, back on Earth while he lay dying and she could do nothing to keep him with her. His last words had been to reassure her, and Chakotay had to chuckle then.

He'd probably say the same thing when his worn out brain finally succumbed. Last night had been a rare gift. The fading of his eyesight, the cooling of his touch and the slowing rhythm of his heart were all unimportant because the scent of her lingered in his nostrils. As his body failed far too quickly, he would have that and her voice to hold to. He didn't mind death if it came with her beside him.

* * *

Kathryn took another forkful of the rice and curried vegetable dish Chell had provided them for dinner. It didn't taste at all of leola root, and without the pungent root's unique mustiness, she found she enjoy her lunch much more than usual.

Chakotay caught her smiling down at her plate and nodded in agreement. "It's not that I don't miss Neelix," he said lightly. "It's just that my taste-buds don't miss leola."

"It is in here though, isn't it?" Kathryn asked. She'd hate to think they were wasting the nutrients in it just because of the taste. Though, the taste almost wasn't worth it.

"Chell is much better at hiding it. He does something to make it undetectable to the taste," he replied, reading over one of the endless stacks of reports they had to work their way through. "I don't know what it is, but he certainly has a knack."

Running her fork around the end of her plate to finish the last of her lunch, Kathryn had to agree. She hadn't enjoyed a meal like that in quite some time. She toyed with her fork while she swallowed the last mouthful. The food had been good, but she had the sneaking suspicion it was the company that made it so pleasant.

"I had a very odd conversation with Seven of Nine of my way back from engineering," she volunteered, looking up from her plate. "She was almost eager to tell me she'd decided that Ensign Beth Lang was far more suitable for her as a romantic partner than anyone else on board. Particular, and this is the example I found surprising, my first officer."

Chakotay chuckled dryly and set down his report. "Ensign Lang is superior to me as a romantic partner in all ways?"

"Well, no," Kathryn had to smile at the playful look on his face. "Superior if the one she's partnering is Seven. Apparently you are better suited for someone else on board."

"Don't suppose she told you who?" he asked lightly.

The PADD in his hand joined their plates on the table. Everything in danger of being forgotten as his dark eyes met hers. How they could be so full of promise, even after seven years, puzzled her in that fantastic way life was supposed to be confusing. He was a mystery and one of the kind she loved to solve. The kind that quickly became an addiction.

"It seemed she went out of her way not to accidentally reveal the identity of your most suitable partner. She was very coy, and for an ex-Borg, that's quite a feat." Kathryn had her own suspicions about Seven's new interest in Chakotay's love life. As hard as she'd tried to deny them, it appeared even Seven's fledgling matchmaking skills were aware of her feelings.

Was he leaning closer to her? His hand was behind her now on the back of the sofa and Chakotay was close enough that she could have kissed him.

Not that she was thinking about such things. Technically she was off-duty; even captain's had to have lunch.

"Well, romantic interest is a new development for her," he offered. "Perhaps she's anxious for everyone else be as happy as she is." Chakotay definitely shifted closer that time. "Have you seen Ensign Lang today?" he asked, smiling as if he knew a secret. "She's nearly glowing."

"Seven's attention can be very focused," Kathryn deadpanned. His hand caught her shoulder, just enough to ease her closer. She was acutely aware of the proximity of his body, the warmth of his breath and the lack of distance between his mouth and hers.

"She reminds me of you that way," he said. "You both have this incredible ability to make everything else in the universe disappear when you're trying to solve a puzzle."

She had a hell of a puzzle at the moment, and it felt like she'd pulling the pieces out instead of putting them in. After Mark had moved on, she'd been alone, but still kept Chakotay at a distance. She had to be the captain.

But that wasn't it. It wasn't her concern for duty or their positions that kept him where he was now: close but maddeningly not close enough. She could be the captain and take a lover. their working relationship had survived the Borg and Captain Ransom; it would survive a date or two.

Would she?

Loss had walked beside her for most of her adult life. Justin was gone and she'd failed to save him. She'd quietly lost Mark. Of course she was afraid of losing him. She'd seen herself without him, and Admiral Janeway was someone she wanted to avoid becoming.

But was it his death that froze Admiral Janeway or the life she'd lived without him?

"There's one thing we haven't tried," Chakotay began, putting his free hand on her knee. "I keep thinking about the future me and the future you and everything we can do not to experience either of those realities and I keep coming back to the one thing we haven't tried."

"Oh?" The word was almost a gasp as it left her tongue.

The shortest distance between two points was a straight line. The distance formula, her algebraic nemesis, used the Pythagorean theorem to prove that point. She'd proved it; it was scientific fact.

Science, however, couldn't explain everything and occasionally had to admit that the shortest distance was coexistence. When two points became indistinguishable from each other, like two stars fusing or two atoms or, in the case of her ready room, two mouths.

The rambling journey of her mind took place in a millisecond, and after that all she knew was the warmth of his lips against hers, and the eager way her body responded to him. Their limited points of contact weren't enough and could never be.

She wanted him. All of him, as close as was humanly possible.

He broke the kiss, forehead resting against hers. "In one future, we started too late. If we could be together years from now, aren't we wasting the moment? We're here, now."

"Chakotay-"

Her commbadge chirped and the sound cut through the quiet. Tuvok's calm voice followed the sound. "Captain, I must inform you that one of our guests has been taken to sickbay. The Doctor has asked for your presence."

She was instantly on her feet. "I'm on my way, Tuvok."

Chakotay followed her. Before they left her ready room, she held them in front of the door. "Being here, with you, might not make the entire universe a better place Chakotay, but I know it would do wonders for my corner of it."

He smiled at her in response, promising the conversation was only on hold. "Mine too."

* * *

Chakotay was half a step behind her as they hurried through the ship on their way to sickbay. He knew it was his future self. Admiral Janeway was too full of life to be in danger and the other him had been too serene. He'd thought it was simply age, but his dreams had promised otherwise. His double had known he had little time to live the moment he'd arrived. The fact that he approached it with such calm was something Chakotay respected, even envied a little. Death was just another long journey; his double was ready for it.

Sickbay was quiet when they entered. The calm spoke before the Doctor even had too.

"I'm sorry," he said once he met them. Admiral Janeway stood next to the biobed. Leaning down over Chakotay's double's body, she had her head down, and both of her hands on him. It was a vigil: her own quiet good bye.

"His neural pathways are completely destabilising," the Doctor explained to both of them, though Chakotay wasn't sure how much Kathryn heard. "There was a slight imbalance when he arrived from the Vulcan pattern superimposed on his brain. After he mind-melded with Tuvok it appeared to correct itself. His mental scans were clear yesterday afternoon." The Doctor's professional frustration slipped into his voice along with his grief. "That seems to have been nothing more than a final surge across a failing circuit. There's nothing I can do."

Kathryn nodded to him, her eyes beginning to shine as her face softened with grief. "Is he-?"

"He feels absolutely no pain," the Doctor promised. "One of the upsides of a failing nervous system. He'll simply go to sleep." He patted Chakotay's shoulder, obviously struggling. "Commander, if there was anything I could have done."

"I know," Chakotay reminded him warmly. "He couldn't be in better hands."

Kathryn hung back, giving her future self time to say her farewell. It would be the second time for Admiral Janeway, and after her reaction to seeing the elder version of himself, Chakotay couldn't help thinking this one would be worse than the last. He lifted his hand to Kathryn's shoulder, holding her close so she had his support.

"I remember when you didn't even trust Tuvok," she said weakly, trying to still her voice.

"I hated him," Chakotay clarified for her. "He fooled me expertly. I had no idea he was working for you and I hated you both for the deception."

"And now you'd give your life for him."

"Now we're family," he replied. "I imagine that held true for him three decades from now just as well as today." He looked towards the bed and the self that lay dying. He'd make that choice easily. Without any desire to leave this life, he would still trade his life for another's. Even Tuvok's.

The Doctor slipped past Admiral Janeway, checking the bioindicators before he reached up and deactivated the alarm. The admiral kept her back to them, completely unaware of anyone else in sickbay.

Chakotay felt Kathryn shift, and turned just as she reached up for his hand where it sat on her shoulder. She squeezed it, hard. "I don't know what to say," she confessed softly. "I should know what she needs to hear, how to lighten her loss, but I don't know what to say."

"I don't know if I can speak for him or not. If it were me and you were the last person I was going to see, I'd be content with that." If he could have hugged her without it being too forward, he would have.

The indicator lights sunk lower and lower. When the admiral's head dropped to the dying man's chest, Chakotay began to silently pray for his other self and his very long journey.

Kathryn took a step towards the admiral. Her compassionate heart ached to be able to do something, anything, to help the older woman. She had time for two steps before the admiral turned around.

Tears poured freely down the Admiral's face, falling from her chin and staining her chest. Her gaze ran over Chakotay and she nearly smiled. When her eyes turned on her younger self, something cracked.

"Do you think about Justin when you look at him?" the admiral asked, her voice rasping with accusation. "Is it Justin sinking beneath the ice that keeps you apart? Or is it Mark, moving on without you and starting a new life? Which old lover are you putting between yourself and happiness?"

Kathryn blinked, obviously startled by the attack.

"I told myself it was for my position. As I assume you do. I was the captain of a starship and that meant I had to be objective. I had to be removed and distant enough that I could be larger than life," the admiral continued. Her voice was laced with bitterness, and the edge in her tone came from sobs buried in her chest. She closed the last of the distance between herself and Kathryn. "The thing they don't tell you about being _larger than life_ is how much you have to stretch who you are to fit it. The bigger you become, the thinner the remains. Make it all the way to admiral and you'll be stretched so thin that a thought pierces through you and leaves you in tatters.

"I could have been the one he married," she snapped, losing herself in her memories. "Not Seven of Nine, but me, because I loved him. I loved him so much I would have done anything to keep myself from having to lose him. So I married him to my protégé and let them be happy. I even tried to be happy for them because I knew they were happy, and I loved them both.

"Then she had to die," she finished, her voice trembling. "I had to watch him let her go. I had to watch as his loss ate him from the inside out, all the while knowing that if I hadn't been selfish and afraid of feeling that pain if I lost him, I could have spared him. To save myself, I doomed him. And I doomed him again because without me, his life was hollow. I'm damned because I didn't love him when I had the chance, I'm damned because he loved me enough to cross time, and you-"

Her hand lashed out and stopped brutally against Kathryn's chest. "You're just damned." Her anger melted, sizzling away like snow next to a fire. The admiral's chin trembled and her tears increased until they were a flood. "You don't know. You can't know what it's like to lose him. You think you remember how it was on that icy hell planet. This-" the admiral laughed and it sounded like tearing paper, "-this is hell, Kathryn, and if you don't stop being the kind of stubborn fool we both know you can be, you're going to be up to your neck in the full glory of hell."

Pushing past the captain in a dark cloud of rage and grief, the admiral nearly collided with Tom and B'Elanna as they entered sickbay.

B'Elanna had her arms around Tom's shoulders, and Chakotay could tell from her breathing that this was either the most convincing bout of false labour yet, or the real thing. The Doctor emerged from his office, tricorder in hand, and Chakotay watched as the drama of the other side of life began on the edge of his vision. He could have kept watching them, focusing on the hope B'Elanna and Tom's baby represented for all of them, but that wasn't his place in the cycle.

Today he had death to care for; he could leave life to the two of them.

Kathryn had left his side. She hovered over the lifeless form of the Ambassador, slowly stroking his white hair. Torn between following the admiral and the woman in front of him, Chakotay decided that his Kathryn needed him more.

She didn't look up when he encircled her waist with his arm. "I hate that part of myself," she sighed, her composure crumbling. "I keep thinking I hate her, but it's myself that I'm furious with. When I'm not careful, this horrible darkness rears itself up and lashes out. When my father and Justin died, I turned it inward. I thought if I hurt myself enough, I could wear the pain out."

He pulled her closer, resting his head against the side of hers. "I've been so angry that it felt like I would drown in it unless I found a way to pull myself out. For a time, I thought killing Cardassians was the answer. If I could somehow pile up enough bodies, I could stand on them and be free of my rage. No matter how many raids I went on, or bombs I set off, the emptiness still only had rage. It filled me up like dark water and I worried that was all that was left of my life."

The elder Chakotay had a smile on his face. Even in death, when the muscles were slackening, Chakotay recognised a smile etched into the lines of his skin. The elder man had peace. He'd had Kathryn and he'd met death with calm and contentment.

He echoed the smile, brazenly kissing Kathryn's temple. The commotion on the other end of sickbay was enough that no one would notice, even if they happened to see the intimate gesture.

"It wasn't until I met you that I realised I even wanted to find my way out. Seeing you walk in the light made we realise I wanted to feel that again."

"It feels a little dark today," she said softly, clutching his arm to her stomach and shaking her head.

He held her hand, pressing the palm of his over the back of hers. "Then I'll be your light."

Turning in his arms, Kathryn rested hers on his chest. "You always are," she whispered. "I don't know what scares me more: having you and losing you or what I'd become if I never do."

One of her tears bathed his thumb as it ran down her cheek. Chakotay stroked it away. "Kathryn, stop thinking."

She opened her mouth to protest, and he covered her lips with a gentle finger.

"Life is not what's going to happen. You're not her, I'm not him and what we have now nothing can take away. Now we're exactly the way we need to be."

Lowering her head, she let him hold her closer. He stroked her hair, losing his fingers in the softness of it as she began to cry.

Tom was laughing and B'Elanna alternately laughed with and roared at him.

It was as the coyote put it, in a very old story. Life was a great river between death and the beginning. You could swim across it, burying your face in the water, or you could let it carry you and look up at the stars. With Kathryn in his arms, his stars were very bright indeed.


	4. Chapter 4

"No," Harry answered when she began to explain the plan. He'd never interrupted her before and it took Kathryn a moment to recover.

"No?"

"No," Seven concurred. "Your plan to remain behind while _Voyager_ returns home is flawed. The Admiral's plan where _Voyager_ returns home is also flawed. The only logical course of action is to destroy the transwarp hub. We will find another method of reaching Earth. We will adapt."

Chakotay's smile was dangerously a smirk. Kathryn looked from him to Tuvok. Tom and B'Elanna were still in sickbay with the Doctor, and the Admiral had insisted on supervising the modifications to Voyager in B'Elanna's absence.

"That plan is not what I'm ordering you to do," Kathryn reminded the four faces staring at her.

"Though I have rarely found the need to fail to heed your orders before, unfortunately, I believe this is a time where I must agree with Mr. Kim and Seven of Nine. _Voyager_ will not abandon you in the Delta Quadrant, nor will we return home to risk losing you to the Borg. Using the transwarp hub poses too great of a risk. We would rather continue as a family than risk losing what we have in the small hope of seeing the families we left behind."

She'd been on the verge of tears since she'd left sickbay. Crying into Chakotay's chest seemed to have only weakened her defences. This meeting was supposed to be short and when it was done, she was meant to prepare to stay in the Delta Quadrant alone. It was the only way to get her crew home and keep herself out of the hands of the Borg.

"Voyager will have ablative armour, enhanced phasers, transphasic torpedoes and all the shield enhancements the admiral can give us," Harry listed off. "Don't get me wrong, captain. I'd love to follow your orders and go home, but, if there's one thing I've learned from you, we don't leave one of ours behind. We all go home, without knowing the Borg are coming to get you in a few years, or none of us do. At least not today."

"You may file a formal complaint in all the permanent records of the crew involved in this decision," Tuvok added, lifting a PADD from the table. "Though I believe it will take some time to do so."

The PADD went to Chakotay first, who began to smile as soon as he read it. "Captain, the only names missing from this list are yours and mine." He paused and set down the PADD to add a note to the bottom. "And I'm afraid I agree with them. You'll have to put us all on report, but, you'll have to do it here, on _Voyager_ in the Delta Quadrant."

"I know a lot of the crew were tempted to return home, captain," Harry volunteered. "I was, but the cost is too high. Besides, we can call home on the _Pathfinder_ and Ambassador Chakotay's Starfleet perfected slipstream warp drive a few years from now. What's a few more years among friends?"

She dropped her head into her hands, utterly failing to keep the tears out of her eyes. "Harry, Chakotay, Tuvok, Seven- all of you- talked the crew into this?" she asked without looking up.

"The crew required very little convincing," Seven reported. "We wish to remain in this collective, even if the collective remains located in the Delta Quadrant."

"It is logical to remain as a unit when the unit functions as efficiently as this one," Tuvok added.

"Tom said I am to tell you 'like hell we'll let you stay, captain'," Seven added. "B'Elanna's sentiment was even explicit."

Chakotay was trying very hard not to chuckle, and his small failure made her lift her eyes from the table.

"I should put all of you in the brig," Kathryn said, shaking her head as tears ran hot down her face. She wiped at her eyes once, but finally let herself weep.

"It would be difficult to run the ship by yourself," Seven observed. "I have experienced it and it was less than ideal."

"You should listen to Seven, captain," Chakotay added traitorously. "She knows what she's talking about."

"I don't know if it's appropriate to thank you for mutiny, but in this case, I will make an exception." Kathryn hated her voice for wavering; there was little she could do to prevent it. "Thank you, all of you. I hope you realise this is a once in a lifetime occasion."

"Yes, ma'am," Harry agreed, beaming.

"And that if you ever- ever- even think of doing this again-"

"We would rather not be required to intervene in this method, however, this time it was necessary." Tuvok finished for them.

"The modifications to the ship are underway," Seven reported. "We require thirteen hours and approximately forty-five minutes to complete them. Perhaps longer if Admiral Janeway continues to assist us."

"She needs the work right now," Chakotay explained. "Be patient with her."

"I shall endeavour to do so," Seven replied. She thought for a moment, then added with a slight smile, "perhaps it is good that Lieutenant Torres is in labour now, while the admiral would be getting into her hair."

"We might not want to mention that," Harry said.

"I had not intended to."

"You're dismissed," Kathryn said, glancing at each of them as they stood. "With my thanks."

Harry just grinned at her. Seven appeared pleased and Tuvok lingered to make sure she was all right.

"Would you make a visit to Admiral Janeway for me? I think she might be in need of a nice cup of Vulcan spice tea."

"Of course, captain."

Kathryn dismissed him with a pat on his shoulder and turned to the star-filled window. Her heart had been wrenched and twisted. She'd been given the dressing down of her life, by herself, no less, and her crew had mutinied to save her life. She should have been thinking of one of the myriad problems in desperate need of her attention. Instead, the almost interrupted kiss she'd shared with Chakotay was first in her mind.

He leaned against the table at her side, patiently waiting for her to take advantage of his presence, as she always did.

Speaking of anything would have only made her tears run faster, and she was running out of the energy to produce any more.

"Let me walk you to your quarters," he said, rubbing her shoulder gently. "The crew have their assignments, the Doctor will announce when B'Elanna has her baby, you've done enough for one day."

"They didn't have to do that," she protested as they headed for the door. "All of them. Every last name."

"Wouldn't you take the ship into danger for any one of them?"

"That's different," she argued. Kathryn tried to discern how and finally had to give up entirely. "Maybe it's not. I don't know anymore."

"It's been a long day," he reminded her gently. "Even without our unexpected guests."

She'd been so heartless. "Chakotay- you- I mean, how are you coping with-"

"Losing myself?" he answered, sending the turbolift to deck three. "He was at peace," he explained, taking his time with his thoughts. "I've been at war with myself most of my life, in one way or another. That me, whatever he'd been through before he came here, was at peace once he arrived."

A cool sensation ran down her spine like a hand and she shivered as they paused outside her quarters. "Because of me."

"More because of hope," Chakotay corrected her kindly. "Though, you're definitely part of that."

Kathryn tapped the panel, opening the door to her quarters. They were dark and still; the last place she wanted to be at the moment. "Cup of tea?"

"Always," he agreed, following her in.

The door hissed shut behind them and Kathryn paused before she reached the replicator. She turned, not even bothering to ask the computer for the lights. He waited, smiling at her patiently in the dark.

"What is it?" he asked gently.

Her split second of debate was brief and one sided. Instead of answering him, or even turning on the lights, she closed the distance between them and kissed him. Unlike the slow exploration of their kiss in the ready room, this was quick, rough and demanding. Instead of talking, or even trying to slow her down, he understood what she needed. He always did; perhaps that was why she loved him to a foolish degree. She no longer doubted in the slightest that she had loved him for several years.

His hands caught her shoulders, first holding her close, then tugging at her uniform jacket. She didn't have the energy or the patience for slow and thoughtful. Catches and zippers melted beneath his nimble fingers and she shrugged out of her jacket. Guiding his hand to her breast, she sighed as he crushed it hard between his palm and her chest. His fingers crawled back along it, teasing the nipple through her bra and the thin grey undershirt. Chakotay kissed down her neck, sucking the flesh until she gasped at the feel of his teeth.

Tearing off his jacket and helping him fumble out of it, she retreated towards the sofa. The bed and the bedroom could wait.

Instead of following her lead, he grabbed her legs and lifted her up on the glass table in the centre of the room. Wrapping her legs around his waist, Kathryn tugged his shirt free, then up and off his shoulders. Licking and nibbling her way up his chest, she moaned when his hand ran down her stomach. Her breath sped in her chest when he tossed her undershirt away. Ignoring her bra, he took both breasts into his hands and abused them through the fabric. Warm, insistent fingers slipped beneath to tease her nipples and she tore the bra off herself in frustration.

He chuckled, let it become a growl in his throat, and pulled off her shoes in quick succession. She reached for his trousers, feeling the hard heat the moment she had them open. Teasing it with her hand through his shorts, she kissed him roughly. He panted into her mouth, reaching around her hips. Kathryn lifted her butt from the table so he could tug her own trousers, and panties with them, off completely. Forcing her nude legs open wide around his waist, he dropped his hand down her stomach and chased the wetness of her up towards the aching desperation of her clit.

Then she really moaned, loud enough to startle him. He kissed her to take it away, sliding his fingers in a slow, maddening circle. The cool glass beneath her and the heat of him in front of her were almost too sharp a contrast to comprehend. He checked with his fingers, teasing her, making her wonder if he was really going to make her _wait._

Penetration came in a deep, conquering thrust. Her surprised exhalation became a gasp of surrender. His fingers held her lower back, keeping her steady and tight against him. His hips ruled their motion, but she controlled the angle. Using her legs to pull him in and increase the friction between them, she let her breathing go.

He caught her neck and held her lips firm to be kissed. Chakotay's tongue fought against hers, distracting her as he found his way deeper. She was easy, almost too much so. Between his fingers and the heat of him within, she laughed and panted her release into his neck. He held her a moment, still full within her.

He stroked her cheek, unbelievably patient and somehow maddeningly calm. "Bed."

Separating from him renewed the ache she'd thought was over. Kathryn was only a moment ahead of him, but still somehow he'd found time to remove the rest of his clothing. He caught her against the bulkhead on the way to her bedroom. Pushing her hair aside, he kissed the base of her neck, then down her back. When he was content, he flipped her, lowered his mouth to hers and reminded her what she loved about kissing.

He even added a few things.

Half-retreating, half-leading him to the bed, she turned so that she was the one who pushed him back onto it. The blanket she hadn't found time to make that morning slipped aside and Chakotay tugged her down. Climbing into his lap, she moaned her way through his exploration of her breasts before she buried him deep within her again. The angle was different, sharper, and she relished his huff of surprise. Rocking over him, Leaning back first, then falling forward so she curled over his chest. Their rhythm was syncopated and much harsher than it might have been. When her gasps had become desperate whimpers, he flipped her over, bent back her leg and let her stop thinking.

Twisting her hands into the sheet, she let go with one and ran it through his sweat-dampened hair. She loved him, her fingers promised as they trailed down his neck. It wasn't loneliness or lust.

Licking up from her breast to her chin, he kissed her slowly and sweetly, stopping his movement within her long enough to be sure she understood. This was commitment, a promise that neither of them would push the other away.

Her body sealed their bargain, stiffening and shuddering through an orgasm much stronger than the first. Kathryn was still beneath him, caught between the heat of his chest and the damp sheets of the bed, when he found his release within her. For a moment, they were both undone, tangled together and lost to the rest of universe.

When he tried to roll off, she kept him, wanting the weight for a while longer. She smiled up at him, holding his cheek before he kissed her.

He pulled her over with him when he rolled, stopping with her head on his shoulder and her legs entwined with his.

"I thought you were the type to make your bed," he said, amused.

Kathryn giggled and kissed the smooth skin of his shoulder. "I was in a hurry."

Toying with her hair, Chakotay laughed with her. "It was busy day."

"Wasn't it?" she sighed, closing her eyes and wishing the lingering peace of her orgasm would remain until she slept.

"We should have-"

"Oh yes."

Something chirped. Kathryn was somewhere between sleep and a lazy sense of wonder but she knew the sound was her commbadge. She groaned, lifted her head and finally crawled from the bed. The chirping continued and he followed her. Her uniform jacket and her precious commbadge were on the floor in a heap in front of the replicator.

"Janeway here." She hoped she didn't sound too out of breath. Maybe it was late enough that she could have been asleep.

"Sorry to wake you," the Doctor said cheerfully. "I just thought you might like to know that the newest member of the crew arrived just a few minutes ago. Little Miral and both her parents made it through labour with flying colours."

"Thank you, Doctor," she replied, cradling her commbadge in her hand as the sound of the baby testing her new lungs filled her quarters. "Give them my congratulations, won't you?"

Chakotay's strong arms wrapped around her as the Doctor promised to do so. He held her close, easing the last of the ache in her heart. The baby was all right, the crew would remain together and somehow, they would find a way home.

* * *

"So you stopped being an idiot?" Kathryn asked, her eyebrow raised in a nearly Vulcan expression.

Her younger self, little Captain Kathryn Janeway, fidgeted a little but smiled. "I did."

Shaking the hypospray full of the deadly paralytic agent in her direction, Kathryn nodded her approval. "Good," she said. "I'd hate to think someone else would have to come back and knock some sense into you."

The captain smiled, clearly grateful. "Thank you."

"I was harsh," Kathryn said almost apologetically. "Very harsh."

"I may have needed you to be," the captain replied gently. It was that innocent smile of hers that Kathryn had lost over the last few years. Maybe the captain could find a way to keep it. If she had Chakotay, she had a good chance.

"Keep him around," Kathryn suggested. "He's not going to lose any of it as he gets older."

The captain blushed faintly when she realised what her older self was insinuating. "You-"

"I'd wasted decades without him," Kathryn interrupted serenely. "Why would I have wasted any chance to be with him?"

The captain pondered that for a moment, then nodded. "I'm happy for you. The ambassador too."

"We took too longer to figure it out and we paid for it," Kathryn concluded, beginning the shuttle launch sequence. "Don't do that."

"I won't," the captain promised earnestly.

Kathryn missed that wide-eyed look. How long had it been since she'd been able to do that? Ten years?

"Godspeed, Admiral," the captain bid her farewell, heading for the hatch before it closed.

"Captain," Kathryn called over her shoulder. "It was good to see you again. Take care of yourself. If you're not careful, you could become a real bitch in your old age."

The captain's smile gave way to a little laugh. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Only one cure for it you know," Kathryn deadpanned, knowing she'd be naive enough to fall for it.

The captain looked up from the bottom of the ramp. "Oh?"

"Regular sex," Kathryn answered before she turned back to her console. "Regular incredible sex is preferred, provided you know where to find it. Shouldn't be too hard," she called as the hatch shut her in. Teasing herself about her sex life was far from an eloquent farewell, but it was what the captain needed.

Flying out of _Voyager's_ shuttlebay towards the Borg and her fate, Kathryn smiled to herself. Chakotay had been right, there was peace in the end. Her end had a finality to it that was comforting and the captain was still near the middle of her life. Kathryn had been there and lost everything that mattered; the captain still had a chance to be happy.

A damn good chance.

* * *

A flaming transwarp hub was a hell of a memorial and Tom counted it for both of the visitors from the future. The green flashes of the destruction of all the Borg in the nebula continued to rage as Voyager leapt away to warp. Admiral Janeway had given her life for them, distracting the Borg long enough for _Voyager_ to blow the transwarp hub into flaming splinters. Tom glanced back from his console and caught the captain sharing a long look with Chakotay.

They'd been doing that lately. Maybe longer than he'd even noticed them gazing at each other. Yesterday, in between B'Elanna swearing and telling him they'd never have sex again, he'd seen the captain let Chakotay hug her. He knew friendly hugs and that one had been far from 'your my best friend' territory and firmly into 'I love you and I'd do anything to ease your pain'."

Not that anyone suspected they were anything less. According to Harry, who'd heard from Chll, who'd seen Seven with Beth Lang talking about her failed date with Chakotay: the captain had been in love with Chakotay almost as long as the first officer had been in love with her.

Since he had B'Elanna, and the baby, Tom figured his life was about as good as it could possibly get. That meant he was free to meddle in everyone else's. Since Seven had Beth, and it appeared the captain and the commander had finally gotten it into their heads to scratch an itch must have desperately needed attending too, his mission was Harry.

Poor guy just couldn't get a date. Tom set the autopilot and glanced thoughtfully up at the starlines above him on the viewsceen. They had a few years left out here, Harry had to get lucky eventually. It was a small ship.

On his console, Tom caught the reflection of Chakotay's hand on the captain's back as they disappeared into the ready room. He turned in his chair, meeting Harry's eye and raising his eyebrows. "Seems like the ghosts of Christmas future did them some good."

"Maybe they just needed to know that it was all right," Harry mused.

"I believe the phrase is that they needed "a good kick in the uniform"," Tuvok quoted as he took the captain's vacant seat.

"That doesn't sound that Vulcan to me, Tuvok." Harry observed.

Tom looked on, grinning at both of them.

"It is a proud Starfleet tradition," Tuvok replied, only showing a trace of disdain. "I heard it from Captain Sulu."

"Which one?" Harry wondered. "Hikaru or Demora?"

"You are such a nerd," Tom sighed, rolling his eyes. "Everyone knows that was Captain Hikaru Sulu. What did you do at the Academy anyway, study?"


End file.
